Arizona voters fed up with homeless encampments, illicit drug use, and public urination approved a first-in-the-nation ballot measure to reimburse property owners for damages incurred by public nuisances — and the measure’s backers say they are looking to push the effort in other states.

The ballot measure, Proposition 312, passed with overwhelming support — 58.4 percent to 41.6 percent, with 68 percent of the vote tallied so far. It would allow property owners to apply for a property tax refund if a city or local government failed to enforce ordinances related to “illegal camping, loitering, obstructing public thoroughfares, panhandling, public urination or defecation, public consumption of alcoholic beverages, and possession or use of illegal substances.”

The reform effort, first drafted by a public policy think tank called the Goldwater Institute, could be used in the future as a model in other states where business owners and residents are frustrated with damage to their properties from homeless encampments and open drug use.

“The homeless issue. It’s not just in Arizona, it’s out of control in California and Washington, even Texas,” Goldwater Institute’s director of government affairs, Jenna Bentley, tells the Sun. She says although this proposition was drafted as an “Arizona solution to an Arizona problem,” that the institute is looking to help other states approve similar efforts. “We work on the national level, not just in Arizona, and when we have good ideas that are working, that are supported by the voters, yeah, I think you can definitely expect Goldwater to look to help other states implement good reforms like this.”

Because Arizona’s ballot measure was passed with “overwhelming support” in a “purple state” with a Democratic governor, Ms. Bentley says that “shows that measures like this really have bipartisan support.”

As the country faces record-high homelessness numbers, the topic has been a major one nationally, even reaching the Supreme Court earlier this year as the justices ruled that cities can enforce public camping bans even if there are no available shelter beds to offer.

Homelessness became a major issue at Phoenix as the city was entangled in a months-long legal dispute over a sprawling downtown homeless encampment called “the Zone,” with more than 1,000 homeless individuals living there at one time. A court ordered the city to clear it last year, but homelessness has remained a major issue in the city and the state at-large.

The overwhelming passage of Proposition 312 “shows that the Arizona taxpayers are fed up with city inaction,” Ms. Bentley says. “I think the homeless issue is something that, it’s not just in our urban areas. It is spreading to some of our more rural districts.”

To be eligible for a refund under the measure, a property owner would need to submit documented mitigation costs to the state’s Department of Revenue. Refunds would be capped at the amount the property owner paid in property taxes in the prior tax year.

One couple supporting the measure, Joe and Debbie Faillace, owned a sandwich shop near “the Zone” at downtown Phoenix but felt they had to sell it because of the homelessness crisis. 

“We had no clue what to expect when we would drive into work every morning,” the couple told Goldwater. They would arrive to find their shop “broken into and vandalized, people passed out or overdosed on our patio, urine and feces scattered across our parking lot and entryway.” The pair said they hope that the new ballot measure prevents similar situations from occurring but that if it does, “the government will have to compensate small businesses like ours for failing to protect our rights.”

Groups opposing the ballot measure, such as the Arizona Housing Coalition, warned it would strain local budgets and mean less money was available for public safety services. 

“Cities like Phoenix are already stretched thin trying to manage the increasing needs of their communities,” the group said in a statement. “Instead of focusing on ways to prevent homelessness and improve public safety, Proposition 312 would force them to spend money on refunds, taking away from efforts that could reduce the need for these cleanups in the first place.” 

That suggestion is “categorically false,” Ms. Bentley says in response. The state already pours an “astronomical” amount of money towards homelessness, she says, and the property tax refunds would come from a “completely separate pot” of funding. 

The Common Sense Institute estimates that statewide spending for homeless services is about $933 million to $1.1 billion annually for the some 14,000 homeless people living in the state. 

“This means that Arizona, through various government and nonprofit providers, spends between 88% and 284% of the median annual rent for a home or apartment in the Greater Phoenix area on every homeless person,” the institute notes. “Despite this substantial financial commitment, the homeless population has not only failed to diminish over the past decade but has, in fact, increased in size.”

Services for the homeless have become a “growing industry” with 167 nonprofit and public groups working directly to combat homelessness, the institute notes, and there are up to 51,000 employees and volunteers dedicated to addressing homelessness — far outnumbering homeless people themselves. 

“I think there’s a lot of questions that should be raised,” Ms. Bentley says. “Cities have massive amounts of money, they have huge budgets to address this issue, and we’re not really seeing a lot of return on that investment.”